Almosts and what if's
by kissmekkkissme
Summary: Damon saves Elena in an unexpected situation and she learns something new about him, she starts thinking about how,even as much as she wants them to be, her and Damon will never be anything and will only ever break each other's hearts.


_A/N; The song that Damon and Elena sing is hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, but for this I'm using the Jeff Buckley version. I would recommend listening to the song while you read this, so type it in on youtube! It's a great song, perfect for Damon and Elena. The song is done on guitar, by try to imagine that it's on piano for the sake of this story, I hope you enjoy it, give me some review and feedback if you like it!_

Elena was angry, embarrassed and nervous as hell. She couldn't actually believe that Caroline had done this to her; had signed her up for _this_. The school talent show. Sure Elena knew she could sing, but she didn't exactly want to demonstrate that in front of the whole of the senior class, Caroline knew how she felt about standing up in front of large crowds, sure she'd faced vampires and survived, but somehow, this scared her way more than the vampires. This was terrifying. It was almost her time to go on now, she had been delaying this for hours, putting off thinking about it 'til the last moment, this _was_ the last moment; she was next. She'd made the mistake of peeping round the curtain earlier and had spied the crowd, it seemed massive! Everyone was there, everyone in her senior class; everyone she could embarrass herself in front of. This was going to be mortifying, she could feel it. She had never been good in front of crowds and she could already feel her throat becoming dry, her palms beginning to perspire. She was going to freeze up there, she could feel it, she was going to embarrass herself, and she would never live this down.

The cheery Christmas decorations smiled down around her blinding her with their light, the lights that reminded her of stage lights, she seriously couldn't do this. Stefan was going to be watching her in the crowd, that was probably the only bonus; Stefan knew how she felt about this and was going to be in the crowd to support her. That was sweet and everything, but he wasn't actually doing anything to help her, or to help her get out of this; Stefan was just as shy as she was. The moment she was dreading was coming; she could hear the act on stage ending. She was next. She heard the roaring applause of the crowd as the act before her took his bow. This so wasn't going to go well; she could already feel herself starting to freeze up. She already knew how this was going to go; she'd get out there, try to choke out a few notes and fail, then she'd end up staring at the back wall of the gym while everyone laughed at her, the grand finale would be her running off the stage in tears.

Joe Dixon, the guy that had gone before her, stumbled off stage looking extremely proud of himself. He grinned at her as he walked passed and wished her luck, Elena barely heard him. This was it. She was tempted to just run, to run out of the back door of the gym and not do this. But she couldn't do that, she had to do this, if not to prove to everyone else, then to prove to herself that she could do this.

"Next, we have Elena Gilbert!"

That was her cue. She listened to the applause of the crowd and imagined that it was just Stefan, just Stefan standing there and supporting her. She took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face, grabbing the microphone that sat on the table in front of her. She half shuffled, half stumbled out onto the stage. When she emerged from the safety of backstage, she was blinded by the bright lights hitting her straight in the face. She gazed around the stage, roaming her eyes over the empty piano and the large space in front of her. She squinted and shielded her eyes from the glare, in the process getting a full look at the crowd. Her heart dropped, she'd been right before; everyone was here. She could see her friends standing in a group in the crowd, Caroline smiling encouragingly, everyone else smiling sympathetically, obviously sensing her distress. She couldn't see Damon though; she would have thought he'd be here, loving her embarrassment. She wanted him to be here. The seductive, sinful vampire that secretly made her heart skip a beat.

She heard the music starting in the background and tried to ignore her surroundings, let herself get absorbed in the music, but it was no use; she just couldn't ignore the crowd surrounding her. The walls seemed to be closing in on her and her breathing was becoming increasingly shallow; she was finding it hard to draw breaths. A sea of people lay in front of her, their faces turned to her expectantly. She drew in a shaky breath and choked out the first word, first note. Her voice came out dry and croaky, she coughed, trying to clear it. The sound resonated through the gym, blaring through the microphone. Elena could feel her face going red, could feel the sweat starting to form on her brow.

The music cut off and she was left in silence. Everyone was staring at her, not a sound was made. Elena could feel the tears starting to well in her eyes; this was even worse than she'd thought, she was seriously never going to live this down. She had completely choked; she was standing frozen on the stage, eyes boring into the back wall in an attempt to block out the crowd. She was just about the give up and run off stage when she heard someone playing the piano that sat on the stage. The music was beautiful and flowing, a tune she recognised. It must be Stefan she thought to herself, he's saving me! But when she gazed out into the crowd, she saw Stefan still there, staring straight through her, staring at whoever was playing the piano so beautifully.

The song was soft, so soft and sad, if she was to describe it in one word, she would say broken. The whole song was broken, broken and beautiful. It reminded her of someone, the way the melody flowed, the broken cords and notes, it reminded her of Damon. Damon. She turned slowly, twisting towards the piano. He was staring straight ahead, she could tell just by looking at him that he wasn't seeing the wall, he looked as though he was remembering a different time, being a different Damon. He looked so beautiful that her heart broke, he was _magnificent_. His long, elegant fingers flew over the keys, looking so effortless. His dark, perfectly messy hair was hanging in his eyes slightly and his mouth was in the most gorgeous sad pout. He looked up, as if he sensed she was staring at him, his eyes met hers, the most gorgeous of cobalt blue meeting her dark brown. He nodded his head slightly and she realised what he was telling her to do.

"I heard there was a secret cord that David played and it pleased the lord, but you don't really care for music, do you? Well it goes like this the fourth the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift, the baffled king composes hallelujah"

The words left her lips without her thinking about them, she knew this song word for word and she didn't have to think about the lyrics that she sang, she could just let herself be carried away by the music Damon was making, making for _her_. She would never have guessed this of Damon, never have put him down as the type that could play the piano so beautifully. He made it look so easy, so _natural_, and so effortless. She would also never have guessed that it would be Damon who was saving her, that the _other_ brother was saving her. He was the antagonist in their story, yet here he was, saving her, he _always_ saved her. He looked up and met her eyes, something passed between them in that moment, and something unsaid was hanging in the air. She found herself falling, falling into endless pools of blue. This was so wrong, _they_ were so wrong. He always did save her though, even if it meant that she hated him for it, he had always saved her in some way, he would save her even if it mean ultimately sacrificing something or someone else, maybe that was why he was always perceived as the villain. He was the antihero, never the prince, always the dark knight. If this was Camelot and she was Guinevere, Stefan would be her Arthur; her fairy tale prince, the one she loved above all others, with all her heart and then Damon would come along; her Lancelot and he would know things about her that even she didn't, her heart would call out to him whenever he was not near. He would make her feel things that no one else in the world could make her feel, but wasn't that what soul mates did? They fit you perfectly; the spaces between your fingers were right where theirs fit perfectly. When you love someone, it's perfect. But with a soul mate, it's perfect chaos.

The lyrics continued to leave her lips and his fingers continued to fly over the keys, but neither of them were really concentrating on the music; their eyes were still locked, completely focused on one another. A message was passing between them, conveyed through their eyes, one of sorrow and what if's. What if Elena had met Damon first? What if Damon had met Elena in 1864 instead of Katherine? What was Damon really to her anyway? They weren't friends, weren't lovers, weren't enemy's. They were nothing, and nothing was all they could ever be, because he was Damon and she was Elena and they were perfect chaos.

Damon's fingers slowed on the keys and the last note escaped her lips and then it was silence. She was still gazing into Damon's eyes, afraid of what would happen if she looked away, afraid of what would happen if she broke this spell. She _knew_ what would happen anyway; she would go back to Stefan and forget Damon, or at least try to anyway. Damon knew this as well, a certain sadness hung in his eyes, a sadness that made her want to wrap her arms around him and hold him, but she couldn't. She couldn't because she and Damon walked a fragile line, and it would be a _very_ bad idea to fall completely onto one side of that line.

Applause erupted in the room and Elena unintentionally looked away from Damon, breaking the spell and the connection. She missed it, and she ached for it. She looked back at Damon, desperate to re-establish what had passed between them before, but Damon just offered her a sad smile and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, _what can you do? _Before she knew what was happening, Stefan had bounded up onto the stage and was embracing her tightly, whispering in her ear how well she had done. Elena looked straight over Stefan's shoulder, her eyes once again searching out the other brother.

It was so bittersweet, seeing him standing there, and she imagined what it would be like to just run into his arms, the arms that would no doubt fit her perfectly. Unfairness hung in the air, it was as if the gods were taunting her with what she wanted but could never have. She and Damon were never meant to be together, she knew that. She and Damon were destined to only ever break each other's hearts, they were two partners in the dance of life, that would come so close to touching, but their skin would never meet. She was dying for his kiss; every dream had led her to him. But her and Damon could never, would never be and she knew it. They were bad for each other, Damon made her feel things that scared her, when all was said and done with her and Damon, all that remained was remains, ashes of what was, and what could have been.

Damon flashed her another smile, but it was a warrior's smile, the smile a soldier gave to his sweetheart just before he went to the front line. A smile filled with sadness, regret and knowing. Damon had also recognised, that they could never be, that their two flames could never meet. They were star crossed lovers in the biggest sense of the word, the type of lovers that would have been epic, the type of lovers that would only ever be a few stolen kisses and longing looks.

She watched as Damon turned on his heel and slunk back behind the curtain; slunk back into the darkness. Elena couldn't help the tears that fell onto Stefan's shoulder, couldn't help it that she was crying for her dark knight; her Lancelot. She had just broken Damon Salvatore, well broken him more than he was already, broken him beyond repair; she had seen it in his eyes. Maybe that was what drew her to Damon, his blatant broken-ness? He was the most complex person she had ever met, the most haunted person she had ever met. She wanted to be the one to hold him when he screamed out in the middle of the night, crippled by his nightmares, she wanted to kiss away his pain and repair him, but she couldn't; she couldn't be that person.

Damon Salvatore was part of her; he was her soul mate, her partner in the dance of life, her twin flame. But their two flames could never meet, their vines could never intertwine, they could never be one, as much as she wanted to be. They could only ever be nothing, could only ever be almosts and what ifs.


End file.
